


Raising Up Hope

by dreamiflame



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, First Kiss, Kid Fic, Padmé Amidala Lives, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-30 12:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8533744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/pseuds/dreamiflame
Summary: Family is what you make of it. Padmé, Obi-Wan and the twins are trying to make it work.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nichestars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nichestars/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta for helping make this better.

Padmé let herself into their quarters late that night. The meeting had run long, and though she was pleased with the progress they’d made today, her breasts ached. Too long without having the children feed, she thought, and keyed the door to lock.

When she entered the twins' room, she saw that Obi-Wan had fallen asleep in the rocking chair he used to feed the twins. Leia gurgled from his lap as she saw her mother. Padmé tiptoed across the room and lifted her daughter up, covering the tiny face with kisses before she unfastened the top of her dress and set Leia to her nipple. Obi-Wan helped and stood in for her in many parenthood matters, but he couldn't do everything, unless he was holding out on her about the powers of the Force.

She let out a sigh of relief as Leia latched on and began feeding, her hungry suckling relieving the pressure Padmé had been feeling for a few hours. Her back started to twinge, but she ignored it.

“You can have the chair,” Obi-Wan said sleepily, standing as he spoke and rubbing a hand over his face. He gave Padmé a hand as she sank gratefully into the rocking chair, and smiled down at her. “It’s late. I thought you’d be back hours ago.”

“Supply run meeting,” Padmé told him, pushing off with her foot. The chair moved gracefully on its rockers, and Leia cooed, blowing a bubble of milk before she nuzzled her way back onto Padmé’s breast. “Everyone has an opinion, and they all have to state them as long windedly as possible.”

Obi-Wan nodded and moved over to the crib, picking up Luke. The boy opened his eyes and scrunched his face. 

“He’s wet,” Obi-Wan told Padmé, and Padmé watched as Obi-Wan whisked Luke out of the wet and dirty nappy and into a clean fresh one before the baby had a chance to start crying. “He’s hungry, too, when you’re done with Leia.”

Leia was starting to doze off, her suckling growing weaker as she slipped into slumber. “I think she’d done now,” Padmé told him, and they swapped twins. Luke attached himself to Padmé’s other breast as though he’d been starving for weeks and Obi-Wan hadn't been feeding them at all. The bottles on the side table told another story.

Putting a cloth over his shoulder, Obi-Wan patted gently at Leia’s back till she burped, then cleaned her face off. A fresh nappy for her, and Leia was placed in the crib, already dreaming, to judge from her waving fists. 

Obi-Wan glanced over at Padmé again. “You look exhausted. Did you eat anything?”

The thought of food had Padmé’s stomach grumbling like a wild beast. “Not since lunch,” she admitted. Obi-Wan was still too much of a Jedi to roll his eyes at her, but she could sense he wanted to. “I don’t need much,” she told him.

“You need more than you can probably stay awake for,” he retorted, and vanished into their tiny kitchen.

Padmé rocked and hummed to Luke, still eagerly feeding at her breast. Alderaan could never be Naboo, but she’d managed to carve herself a life here. For her, the twins, and Obi-Wan.

She heard clattering from the kitchen for a while before Obi-Wan reappeared with a steaming mug and a plate of something mostly green. Padmé took the mug and blew on the soup inside. It smelled divine, savory with just a hint of spice, some kind of native fowl and gourd recipe Obi-Wan had been given by one of Bail’s assistants. She sipped the soup eagerly.

He set the plate on the table next to the rocking chair, and went back to the kitchen, returning with tall glasses of cool water for them both. Padmé smiled at him and tried to act like she hadn’t just burned her tongue on the soup.

“Is he ready to go back to bed?” Obi-Wan asked, and Padmé glanced down at Luke.

His tiny brow was wrinkled in fierce concentration, and he still sucked strongly at her nipple. “I don’t think so,” she told Obi-Wan. He nodded and made himself comfortable in the easy chair a meter or so away.

Padmé sipped her soup and watched as Obi-Wan fought with sleep. He wasn’t wrong before: it was very late, and their day had started much earlier.

“You don’t need to wait up,” she said, a yawn catching her off guard and garbling her words. Obi-Wan’s lips quirked before he yawned, too. “I can put Luke to bed when he’s done.”

“I’ll wait,” Obi-Wan said, and stifled another yawn. Padmé shrugged, setting down her mug so she could guide Luke into switching breasts. Leia hadn’t fully drained the first and Luke was still hungry.

“Eat your sandwich,” Obi-Wan instructed her, and Padmé picked up the green something, now revealed as a leafy sandwich on seaweed bread. Perhaps it was time to let Obi-Wan know she really couldn’t stand the seaweed bread.

Her stomach growled again, and Padmé took a bite, chewing mechanically. Maybe it was just that she had forgotten to eat all day, but the sandwich was delicious. Even the bread tasted good.

Luke fell asleep still nursing, and Padmé eased her nipple out of his mouth, covering herself back up. She caught Obi-Wan’s eyes on her breasts for a moment before he came to his feet and walked the few steps between them to retrieve Luke. “I’ll take care of him. You need to eat.”

Padmé didn’t argue, just turned her full attention to her food. By the time Luke had been burped and set back in the cradle beside his sister, she was finished.

Obi-Wan reached for her plate, and impulsively, Padmé drew him down to her and kissed him. His beard tickled against her cheeks and he froze, eyes impossibly wide. “Thank you,” she said, releasing him.

He drew back almost insultingly quickly, and nearly tripped over the low table in front of the couch. “What-” he started to ask, then shook his head. Obi-Wan gathered up the dishes hastily and nearly ran for the kitchen, leaving Padmé to frown after him.

Surely it couldn’t have been that surprising, could it? Obi-Wan had been there from the start, ever since that awful day on Mustafar, all the time taking care of both her and the twins as though they were his own family. She and he had been friends for years, and this new closeness had just underscored how deeply Padmé cared for him.

Padmé had been sure she wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

Obi-Wan didn’t come back from the kitchen. She huffed out a sigh. Fine. It was late, she’d startled him, he didn’t want to talk about it. She levered herself out of the rocking chair and stretched, then made her way to the fresher to get ready for bed.

But whatever Obi-Wan was thinking, he had still pulled the crib into the bedroom by the time Padmé was done in the fresher, and was turning down the blankets on their large shared bed. They had tried sleeping in separate rooms the first week or so, but it became quickly obvious all four of them would get more sleep if they were all in one room. Obi-Wan woke when the twins did, and would only wake her if they were hungry: the rest he would handle, changing nappies and soothing colic before returning to bed. He was blessed with a soldier’s ability to drop off anywhere whenever he got the chance, while Padmé struggled to return to sleep after being woken.

He glanced at her, then turned his attention back to the sheets, pulling them down out of his way. “You’re welcome,” he said, as though he hadn’t been hiding from her in the kitchen. Padmé bit her lip to keep from laughing and climbed onto her side of the bed.

Normally, they stayed on the edges, keeping space in between them for- Padmé wasn’t sure what. Propriety? The Jedi code? Anakin’s ghost? Something. But it was getting colder, and she slid across the mattress as Obi-Wan got into bed, stopping when she could feel the heat from him.

Obi-Wan looked at her, and Padmé could read determination in his eyes, along with a touch of panic. “I’m just cold,” she said, and he settled, reaching to turn the light off with a wave of his hand.

In the dim moonlight filtering in their windows, Padmé could just make out the gleam of his eyes at he looked at her. “Yes?” she asked, yawning again. The cozy dark and the steady soft sighs of her sleeping twins were reminding her of how exhausted she was.

“The Jedi code forbids attachment,” he said quietly.

Padmé snorted and put her head on his shoulder. “I think we’re a little past that, you acting as my children’s father and all.”

“I suppose,” Obi-Wan said, sounding thoughtful. Padmé closed her eyes. “Padmé?”

“Hm?” she asked.

His arm came around her and hugged her close to him. “You have very soft lips.”

She giggled. He tipped her chin up and kissed her, just as softly as she’d done to him earlier. “We should try this again sometime. When we’re not so tired.”

Padmé tucked her face back against Obi-Wan’s shoulder to hide her smile. “If you’d like,” she said.


End file.
